Jackass Roars Back to Paramount+ With Restored Original Episodes

Way back in the early 2000s, a bunch of skateboarding misfits started throwing themselves into shopping trolleys, setting off fireworks in confined spaces, and generally making a mockery of good sense — all for our entertainment. Now, nearly a quarter of a century after launching its first film, the Jackass crew is calling it a day with a movie appropriately titled 'Jackass: Best and Last'. It says a lot about both pop culture and audience taste that this glorified home video experiment has lasted nearly 25 years and turned Johnny Knoxville and the lads into immortal, if slightly bruised, household names.

A Farewell to (Literal) Arms and Legs

'Best and Last' hits cinemas this summer and, by all accounts, will be the final curtain for the gang. After decades of cracked ribs and eyebrow-raising lawsuits, even Johnny Knoxville admits the tank is just about empty. The relentless physical punishment they’ve endured isn’t just a running joke—Knoxville himself has said that after the injuries he collected filming the last movie, he’s dialling back the, ahem, “high-impact” stuff for this swansong.

The Original Jackass, Properly Restored

If you want a refresher on the early days—long before a major studio was even involved—you’ll be chuffed to hear that Paramount+ is putting the first three seasons of the original Jackass TV show back on the streamer. The twist? These are brand new restorations of the episodes that first aired, not the oddly chopped-up, out-of-sequence reruns you might have caught in recent years.

The backstory here is surprisingly messy. When the series started streaming, quite a few episodes had been butchered—segments taken out for being too over-the-top, music swapped out because they’d lost the rights, whole sequences shuffled around randomly. Even Johnny Knoxville admitted in a statement that 'the episodes had been re-edited, re-sequenced, and re-scored to the point they were unrecognizable.' In his own words:

'I found this out the hard way last year when attempting to watch them. Eeek! But kudos to Paramount for giving us the $$ to restore the shows to how they initially aired in the first place. We can’t wait until you see all the terrible things we did to each other way back then and in the manner we intended!'

Jackass: The Small-Scale Anarchy That Changed TV

Jackass started out as pure do-it-yourself chaos, filmed on a shoestring budget with all the risk management of an unattended petrol station. The cast was plucked from the skating underworld, not because of their acting chops but simply because, say, Bam Margera happened to know a bloke with a van or someone had access to a supermarket trolley. The appeal? They were genuinely willing to inflict pain on themselves and each other for a laugh, and who doesn’t love a bit of sanctioned lunacy?

Interesting little fact: a few of the original episodes never made it into re-runs or onto streaming at all, usually because somebody in a suit decided a stunt was 'a bit much' or the background music rights had expired. So for the first time in years, you’ll be able to see the world’s worst ideas, presented exactly as the Jackass crew intended, complete with the original soundtrack. It's surprisingly nostalgic, if not a tiny bit horrifying.

The Jackass Legacy — and What Comes Next?

• Original cast: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera, and a rogue’s gallery of others who probably still flinch at loud noises
• Spawned spin-offs: 'Viva La Bam', 'Wildboyz', plus various solo projects of questionable taste
• This last film most likely signals the end of this brand of group carnage—unless someone else picks up the torch (and hopefully doesn’t set themselves on fire)

Whether you loved it, hated it, or pretended you were much too sophisticated for all that, there’s no denying Jackass changed the landscape of TV stunts and reality comedy. With the original series making a proper comeback and the saga supposedly ending on their own terms, it’s both a send-off and a time capsule of very questionable decision-making.